


Through A Glass, Darkly

by Odaigahara



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bodyswap, Brainwashing, Confused Thomas Sanders, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Hydra (Marvel), Impersonation, Moral Dilemmas, Supervillains, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26825344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odaigahara/pseuds/Odaigahara
Summary: “This is really, really,reallyweird,” Thomas tried again, looking down at his changed clothes. He was wearing a lab coat, over a black dress shirt and pants, but there wasn’t even a tie.His attention flicked to the giant fan-shaped thing in the corner, conspicuously dustless and surrounded by fallen papers. Thomas ventured toward it, braced for Virgil to shout and make him jump about eight feet in the air, but nothing happened.He picked up the papers, finding a manila folder and paper clips next to it, and frowned. It was some kind of file, with an image of the fan thing and a pug-faced white guy with the nameArnim Zolaprinted under him in letter type. There was an skull-and-octopus insignia in the corner of the page, completely unfamiliar.Everything about the situation was completely unfamiliar. It didn’t really feel like a dream.*Or: Thomas gets brain-swapped with a version of himself who works for an evil organization in a world of superheroes.No one is happy about this.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Morality | Patton & Thomas Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders & Thomas Sanders, Deceit | Janus Sanders & Thomas Sanders
Comments: 29
Kudos: 70
Collections: TSS Fanworks Collective





	Through A Glass, Darkly

**Author's Note:**

> TW's at end notes.
> 
> Thanks to alicat54c for beta reading, and to the TSS Fanworks Collective for the title. This is a weird one, but I'll try to make it fun, too.
> 
> Also, if you're here from the MCU fanworks side of things, it's gonna be pretty heavily focused on Sanders Sides half of the crossover.

Thomas had spent three hours finding the perfect classical music snippet for the fourth Asides episode; the components of his personality had stopped arguing somewhere around hour two. Now they were lounging around the living room, flopped onto the floor or hissing at each other and discussing in great detail all the merits of reggae versus jazz.

Roman was singing _Three Little Birds_ with more ruffles than a 19th-century petticoat. Patton was humming along, Janus pushing Logan to agree that freeform jazz was at the very least more technically interesting than anything played on the beach. Virgil was curled up on the back of the couch, headphones in, and Remus was lying facedown on the floor, occasionally flopping over to add an eerie harmony to whatever Roman and Janus were singing at the time.

... Harmony might have been pushing it. Really Remus was screeching, laughing when he got Roman to stumble over a line, and insisting that dubstep was the best musical form _hands down_. Thomas was horrified to find that some edgy part of him agreed.

Or rather, Virgil gave that assertion a thumbs-up, which was of course the same thing.

“Guys, I think I’ve actually got Ella Fitzgerald stuck in my head now,” Thomas said eventually, and Janus hissed _yesss!_ and pumped a gloved hand in the air. Then he blinked and exaggeratedly smoothed out his clothes, posture going languid and perfect once again.

“ _What!_ But Bob Marley is exponentially more fun to bop to in Florida, where we have access to the beach-” Roman gestured wildly. “And to great deals of wine, like for, I don’t know, maybe _romantic outings?_ _And_ he’s mentioned in a musical.”

“Who listens to _reggae_ on a romantic outing?” Virgil asked.

“Just because you can’t think of any scenarios doesn’t mean there aren’t any, Dank Sinatra.” Roman sniffed. “And I mean dank in the sense of gloomy.”

“Ah, yes, I was about to inquire about the precise definition in this case,” Logan said, tucking away his flashcards. “As for myself, I believe this entire conversation was pointless except as a way to distract Thomas into letting a one-hour task devolve into three.”

“Aw, but it _Marley_ took any of his attention away at all! And Thomas looked pretty _jazzed_ to be listening to our conversatio-”

Gravity shifted. Thomas’s back hit the ground with a painful thud, breath whooshing out of his lungs, and he laid there for a second, dazed by the sudden change.

Then he realized he’d fainted, and that Virgil would be freaking out soon if he wasn’t starting already, and scrambled to his feet-

The sight of gray walls, metal cabinets, and steel operating tables hit him like a tennis ball to the face, all illuminated by dim flickering lights that looked like they hadn’t seen an electrician since before Stalin. Thomas jumped back, whirling around and getting more bewildered every second. His hands were covered in dust, feet leaving tracks on the gray-caked floor. His nose itched with the urge to sneeze.

“O- _kay,”_ Thomas drew out, glancing around. “This is a super realistic daydream, I have to say, more than the courtroom, which I didn’t really think was possible... but also it’s really freaking weird. Is there a lesson I’m supposed to learn here?”

Nothing. Thomas’s heart picked up speed, but Virgil didn’t appear to give his input. “This is really, really, _really_ weird,” he tried again, looking down at his changed clothes. He was wearing a lab coat, over a black dress shirt and pants, but there wasn’t even a tie.

His attention flicked to the giant fan-shaped thing in the corner, conspicuously dustless and surrounded by fallen papers. Thomas ventured toward it, braced for Virgil to shout and make him jump about eight feet in the air, but nothing happened.

He picked up the papers, finding a manila folder and paper clips next to it, and frowned. It was some kind of file, with an image of the fan thing and a pug-faced white guy with the name Arnim Zola printed under him in letter type. There was an skull-and-octopus insignia in the corner of the page, completely unfamiliar.

Everything about the situation was completely unfamiliar. It didn’t feel like a dream.

The Sides’ continued absence made him antsy and cold. Not that he never spent time without them, obviously, but to call them and have no one answer was unsettling. Thomas swallowed against the dryness in his throat and rubbed his arms, trying to warm himself up, and sat on one of the operating tables to glance through the files.

They were in English, which suddenly felt like a thing to note, and detailed the history of Zola’s twenty-second unknown device, which some other Zola- maybe a family member? It wasn’t clear- didn’t know anything about. The purpose of the device was left empty, with project notes spanning twenty years and ending in the early 2000s.

Half of them were lists of experiments or partial disassemblies. The other half was a list of deaths.

“That’s it,” Thomas said, voice going a little high, and hopped off the table. He felt like he had to move, to pace, to do something. Like he had to outrun the dread creeping into his gut. “Someone come out and tell me what’s going on right now, because I am not having a good time!”

The air changed, and Thomas felt a presence at his back- a prickling between his shoulder blades like he was being watched, that familiar shift in the room as one of his Sides appeared. He relaxed without meaning to, even as his heart pounded a bass beat in his chest, and said in relief, “Logan,” already turning around.

His brain skipped, needle skidding wildly off the spinning record. Logan was dressed in his black dress shirt and tie, same as usual, but the tie was so indigo it was almost black, and his pants were as dark as a member of an orchestra’s. 

“Thomas,” Logan said. “If you are willing to elaborate on the nature of your problem, I will find it much easier to offer assistance.”

“I,” Thomas said, wanting to gesture at all of Logan and ask why the costume change and also _where the heck were they,_ a traffic jam of questions all caught up in his throat. “Just. Want to know what just happened?” he finished weakly, staring at his logical Side. “I woke up on the floor. Not sure what happened just before that.”

 _Something_ had to have happened, for Thomas to go from Ella Fitzgerald to Project Paperclip in the span of a second. Maybe memory loss, in which case Logan and Patton might not be as helpful as he hoped, or a concussion bad enough to knock his whole head out of whack. Maybe a dream so intense it felt like waking hours, or an elaborate philosophical _gotcha_ that Janus would reveal any moment now.

He expected the same level of confusion, or the revelation that this wasn’t real after all. He didn’t expect Logan to straighten his shoulders and say, posture tense and immaculate, “I believe the thermal calculations were inaccurate. The inner wiring of the device had less insulation than expected, possibly due to eighty years of accumulated damage-”

“Whoa, hold on,” Thomas blurted, trying to keep up, and Logan cut off like he’d flipped a switch. “I messed up using the f- the device? That’s why I woke up on the floor?”

“Yes,” Logan clipped out, hands fidgeting and stilling at his side.

“Because of electrical engineering?” Thomas asked incredulously, because that had _not_ been his major, and also he hadn’t thought about his actual college major in at least a year, much less tried to implement the knowledge Logan had done his best to store so carefully.

“Yes,” Logan said, and Thomas saw what was wrong all at once, realization dumping ice water down his spine. Logan wasn’t meeting his eyes. He was focusing the ground, just past Thomas, on the collar of Thomas’s shirt- but never him. He wavered closer, not sure whether Logan would want him to ask if something was wrong.

Logan’s eyes flicked to meet his for a brief, tense second. “I accept full responsibility for the mistake. The calculations were done mentally, without triple checking, and it’s very possible that other factors were overlooked as well. While the preparations may have been overcautious, the caution was purely mine, in the interest of preserving the well-being of the device for future studies.”

“Okay?” Thomas tried, because Logan suddenly pinning everything on himself when caution in this case was definitely Virgil’s wheelhouse was actually really bizarre. “So Virgil-”

“Was _entirely_ _uninvolved,”_ Logan snapped, hands clenching tight at his sides. “The mistake was in the calculations. As such, the fault is mine.” His eyes met Thomas’s again, hot and furious, color high in his cheeks-- but his hands were shaking, the tiniest bit. Thomas could almost have mistaken him for trembling with rage.

His heart caught in his throat, an unnameable thought choking out his breath, and he stepped forward-

Logan tensed even further, turning his head to show his cheek, eyes pinned anywhere but Thomas. All of a sudden Thomas couldn’t breathe at all.

He jerked back, hitting the operating table and sending it skidding with a metallic screech, and said, “Okay, this isn’t funny anymore!” His voice came out higher than he wanted, almost begging, but that didn’t- he couldn’t bother being embarrassed by it. 

Logan was staring at him. Logan was tense and watchful and insisting it was his fault and bracing, like he thought Thomas was going to hit him, like Thomas could ever hit him. Like Thomas could so much as imagine reaching out and hurting one of his Sides, like it wasn’t anathema on the level of slapping a kid, or marrying a girl, or breaking a cat’s neck because it was meowing too loudly.

He wanted to cry. He wanted to wake up from this nightmarish scenario and snap at Janus for making him even think of it, because in what world would this be an option? He wanted to demand an explanation, speak to the universe’s manager, _something-_

But Logan was still staring, no longer refusing to flinch but loose and alert with alarm, more like how he should have been. _Logan_ , dressed all in black with a tie so dark it was barely even blue, standing on the dusty floor and leaving it unmarred. “Thomas, are you- feeling well?”

“Nope,” Thomas said with a hysterical giggle. “Not really, no, I’m actually kind of panicking!”

“Right,” Logan said, face going blank again. “I suggest you undertake a breathing exercise. If you like, I can breathe with you-”

“Why are _you_ the one doing this?” Thomas shrilled, and when Logan flinched outright said, “No, no I don’t mean- ugh, I just- where is everyone? How did I get here, we were doing a video and talking about reggae and then I was, I was on the ground-”

 _Explain this_ , he wanted to beg. _Make it logical, make it the expected outcome, tell me all the ways I’m overreacting and this makes perfect sense._ He braced himself on the wall, let himself sink into a sitting position, hugged his knees. “Could you count?” he asked, tears stinging his eyes. “I don’t- feel right. Something’s not right. This isn’t right.”

Logan nodded carefully, lowering himself to the ground beside Thomas. He didn’t touch him, not even a cool, practical tap to focus his attention. “I need you to breathe with me,” he said, voice catching. “I will count, and you will inhale, hold your breath, and then exhale. We are beginning now.”

Thomas exhaled shakily, then closed his eyes, forcing himself to think of the world as it should have been, telling himself the cold metal at his back was the stove or refrigerator or something. Logan’s measured, uncertain voice kept the time- if there was one thing Logan was great at, it was counting- and he followed along, inhale-hold-exhale, 4-7-8, until the tightness in his lungs loosened enough to let him breathe.

The tears didn’t fall. He didn’t grip his legs so tight it left little red indents, didn’t bite his lip bloody or lose all composure or summon Virgil to panic beside him. None of that made him feel any better.

When he could breathe, he kept his eyes shut for a moment longer, trying to focus- but when he opened them, Logan was the same dark shape beside him, and he was still in the metal bunker, old electric lights casting cold shadows across the room. He was still wearing the fucking lab coat.

Right. Not a dream, or he would have felt where he actually was by now. He could almost always tell where he actually was, when he focused, which meant this was his real location. He was in a bunker messing with electric engineering with a Logic who was scared of him, and somehow it all had to make sense.

Logan wasn’t panicking. It _had to_ make sense.

“Thanks,” he sighed, and Logan stiffened. Strangely enough, that didn’t make Thomas feel any better. “That was- I don’t know what came over me. I guess there’s more important questions I should be asking.”

“Yes,” Logan said, sounding a little lost and also like he thought he was about to take a test he hadn’t studied for. “If you’re referring again to what went wrong-”

“No,” Thomas said, and heard Logan’s breath catch. “Sorry. I have a different question, and it’s, um. A little weird.”

“I will answer to the best of my ability,” Logan said. He didn’t even say _considerable_ ability. Thomas had the sudden, stupid urge to correct him.

Deep breaths. Treat this like improv, get the lay of the land. “Can you tell me about myself?”

A question with an obvious answer. If Logan said he was a YouTuber and explained that it was March or whatever, maybe he could figure out what kind of psychotic break he’d had that’d landed him in this situation, could beg forgiveness and make amends-

Logan straightened his tie, a quick nervous motion, and said, tentative, “You are Dr Thomas Sanders. You are in the employ of the organization known as HYDRA, for the purpose of ensuring the compliance of its most important asset. You are a scientist and an engineer, thirty-one years old, and without any significant other. At the moment you are in rural Croatia, roughly 156 kilometers from Dubrovnik, in order to study an invention of Arnim Zola that his replicated mind is unable to recall or explain.”

Thomas stared. Logan fidgeted again, hands going from tie to glasses to awkwardly at his knees, and asked, “Are you concerned with my ability to perform my function? If there is any way I can assure you of my competence-”

“No,” Thomas said hurriedly, because _what_ , “that’s not- you’re great, Logan, you’re not the problem. I just don’t recognize any of that.”

Logan paused. “I beg your pardon?” he asked, incredulous, almost sounding like himself.

“I don’t remember ever getting a doctorate,” Thomas said, “or staying an engineer after college, or getting employed by some kind of mythology-themed corporation or going to Croatia, why would I go to Croatia? I’m not even sure I can point it out on a map.”

“You can,” Logan said, and Thomas laughed, helpless, because as soon as Logan said that the information was there, close enough to grasp.

“I don’t remember being able to,” he said. “I remember talking to you guys about music while we edited a video, and you called the whole conversation stupid because it was distracting me from finishing my to-do list in a timely manner. You spent every second past the first deadline trying to convince me that I should ignore the whole argument and focus on my work so we could go get groceries. You were advocating for Whole Foods. Virgil called it _Whole Paycheck_.”

Logan’s expression was like a computer experiencing an error. “I don’t recall that,” he said blankly. “We have not- we do not edit videos, or go to Whole Foods, and HYDRA is not a corporation in the _least-”_

“That’s what I mean,” Thomas said. “I’d get it if I had amnesia for some reason, except I think then you’d have it too, right?” Logan nodded, watching him warily. “But this is a whole nother set of memories. I’m serious, I don’t know how I got here. I don’t get half of what you’re talking about. What’s HYDRA?”

“You _know_ what HYDRA is,” Logan said weakly, but even as the knowledge drifted into reach he was talking, rising to his feet and pacing like the explanation made him jittery. “HYDRA, aside from being the organization that employs you, is an authoritarian paramilitary-subversive agency originally formed in Nazi Germany as the scientific branch of the Schutzstaffel. After the events of World War Two, it survived through the importation of Nazi scientists to the United States and was rebuilt within the extra-governmental military and counterterrorism agency known as SHIELD, and is currently in operation from concealed bases around the world, especially in Europe, continental Asia, and North America. You have been employed by HYDRA as a scientist for three years, but only reached your current position of relative prominence after one. You live on-base. You have spent three years assisting in research and development and the programming of the Winter Soldier without pause. How can you not recall this?”

It took a while to take in, but the information was already there; all Thomas had to do was assimilate it, and then- “How can I _not recall_ this?” he choked, staring at his lab coat with new horror. “I’m a _Nazi?_ I’m _evil_ now? What does Patton think of this?”

Logan went so pale that Thomas had to stop himself from lurching forward. “Please do not ask Patton’s opinion.”

Thomas said before he could stop himself, soothing, “Okay, okay, I won’t, don’t worry. I just- don’t get it. At all, I- am I racist? Do I hate Jewish people now?” The thought made him sick. “I don’t even remember a Nazi organization with a snappy, sinister name in any of my history classes.”

“That doesn’t make sense, either,” Logan said, frowning. He was still pale, though, still watching Thomas like he might explode. God, no wonder, if other Thomas was a fucking _neoNazi_. “HYDRA is one of the favorite subjects of the current United States History curriculum. Its relation to Captain America-”

Thomas’s blank expression must have said it all. Logan said, choked, “You don’t know who that is.”

“Please assume I was born yesterday,” Thomas begged.

“Impossible. You are clearly too developed to have been naturally born any less than twenty-five years ago, when your brain and body would have reached full maturity,” Logan said automatically, then froze, casting Thomas another one of those nervous glances. “Th-that is to say, Captain America is one of the most prominent superheroes in the American psyche. Halloween costumes meant to depict his likeness sell reliably sell by the millions every October, especially after the alien invasion of New York in 2012, and the AP US History exam regularly includes free-response questions on his exploits in Western Europe in the mid-1940s. The fact that you don’t already know this is, well. Troubling.”

“That’s the least of it,” Thomas said, distantly relieved that he was already sitting down. “Because, um, alien invasion? Superheroes?” A horrible thought struck. “Logan, are we supervillains? Is Patton evil?”

“No!” Logan yelped, and then shuddered and said, calmer, “In order to be classified as supervillains by the press and public, we would have to make a solo or group appearance under a recognizable costume and name. It would be more accurate to say that we work for a villainous organization, for villainous purposes, and despite the exorbitant paycheck are not in fact free to quit or leave in any way other than death, nor trusted enough yet to live in regular society for any reasonable length of time. It’s an incredibly exploit-- a concerning situation. But Patton is not evil, by any definition of the word, nor is he content with your current activities. He is also not required at this specific moment.”

Thomas tried to imagine his Patton letting him become a Nazi supervillain. Then he imagined what a Nazi supervillain Thomas who apparently hit Logan would do to _him_ and said, feeling nauseous, “I seriously only remember being a YouTuber.”

“You have never been an, ah, ‘YouTuber’,” Logan said, clearly wanting to use finger quotes. Thomas stood, and he backed up a few paces, still not meeting his eyes. “I can assure you that you have always desired to be an engineer, bar some forays into theatre throughout middle and high school, and have never considered a career in social media.”

That was almost the most shocking thing Logan had said so far. Except for the Nazi thing, and the supervillains thing, and the abusive thing- oh, who was he kidding, _everything_ was shocking. Thomas felt floaty and strange, mind lagging behind his body, and got the feeling that catching up would end with him on the floor or in tears. The dream wasn’t ending, so it probably wasn’t a dream, which meant this was his _life-_

“Do you like this job?” he asked pathetically, not sure how he wanted Logan to answer. A _yes_ would mean that at least he was enjoying science things, and maybe without Patton or Virgil pushing him he didn’t care about the atrocities or whatever, but a _no_ would- the idea of _all_ of them being unhappy, and neoNazi scientist Thomas just _doing it anyway-_

“I enjoy the technical aspects, on occasion,” Logan admitted, “though the purpose of the work is... off-putting.” _You hate it,_ Thomas mentally translated, _you hate it but don’t think you can say._

Oh, god, and why did Thomas _think_ Logan couldn’t say? 

“And I’m still doing this?” he asked. “In a couple of days, I have to go back and keep doing this? Logan, I’m not even an engineer anymore. I don’t remember _Riemann sums,_ much less all the stuff that goes into some kind of _memory-swapping device_.” 

And were _his_ Sides dealing with Nazi Thomas? Were his family and friends and fanbase dealing with him? He couldn’t think about it. He didn’t think he could bear it.

“That’s irrelevant,” Logan said. “I remember, so you should gain the knowledge as well. Though, if you’ve truly been- _swapped_ , you will have trouble with more than the science of the procedures.” He was watching Thomas like he thought it was all a trick, some kind of test he was performing badly on. Thomas’s heart hurt.

“Yeah,” he said, and tried to remember what it felt like to be okay. “I get that. I’ll have to-” Lie, and act immorally, and think of horrible things and not be anxious and maybe be creative and that involved all of his Sides but if Logan was like this what were _they_ like, how scared could they be of him- “Pretend,” he managed. “I’ll have to pretend. So they don’t notice a difference.”

Janus never felt like anything when he appeared, concealing himself so completely that Thomas only knew he was there once he spoke or stood in front of him. Thomas saying he needed to lie should have been his cue to enter stage right, but the bunker stayed horribly silent. 

Logan watched him, waiting, spine as tense as a steel cord. Thomas said, “Janus, if you could help I’d really appreciate it,” and braced.

His deceitful Side appeared in front of him, between him and Logan and close enough to touch. His outfit was exactly the same, scales patching down his face and neck and capelet as ostentatious as always. Thomas had to fight not to cry.

“Well,” Janus said slowly, watching him with all the caution of a rattlesnake, “this is certainly what I expected to happen today.”

“Tell me about it,” Thomas said, and tried to smile. 

Janus didn’t smile back.

**Author's Note:**

> TW: implied/referenced abuse, mentions of Nazis and everything to do with them including antisemitism and racism, implied/referenced brainwashing, panic attacks


End file.
